28 Days Later - Day Three

Day Three dawned cold, crisp, and overcast. A large flock of Green finches were picking the last of the seeds from the long-dead sunflowers along the driveway. An eerie silence pervaded. With the travel moratorium now in effect, the traffic on the highways was down to only the periodic rumble of a long-haul truck.

Photo from NZ Birds Online. I can't get close enough to the ones at my place to get a decent photo.

With the cold setting in, last night I thought it might be good to get out the slow cooker - it had been a while. I had bought 1 kg of chicken breast before the lockdown, so I shuffled through the pouches and sachets in the 'meal pouches and sachets' drawer - yes, I have a drawer just for that.
Under them all, I found a pouch of spice paste for a Madras Coconut Masala. It was a gorgeous artisanal spice paste crafted by a small NZ company. I love their stuff! The 'use by' date on the stamp was 2016, which meant I had bought it back in 2015. Yeah, I remember buying it. But unopened, these things never actually go off. So a kilo of chicken, a ton of coconut cream, and 6 hours later - voila! A fabulous smell wafting around the flat, and seven evening meals.

After breakfast, I made a point of reaching out to a few important contacts, which included my lovely landlady who lives in Japan, and a friend in Napier - to see if she wanted to set up some video chat crafting sessions. After that, it was time to get out in the garden for some more weeding and planting. For a time, the clouds withdrew and the sun streamed through giving some much needed warmth.

As the day moved on, the Government's fear that the weekend would see people relaxing the rules and treating it like a normal weekend were starting to be realized. After only one day of people taking it seriously, by 10.30 there were people once again out walking and driving around, kids up and down the pavements on scooters, and playing ball in the street. On the one o'clock news, there were reports of people congregating at parks to play Frisbee and touch football. Ye gods, people! Like crime and war, viruses don't stop for weekends and holidays!

The remainder of the day continued to oscillate between sunny and cloudy, periodically threatening rain but never quite delivering. By mid-afternoon things had quietened down, and people were mostly back at their own places, although I think that had more to do with the ominous skies than any prevailing common sense. I was getting the distinct impression that the weather was going to be a deciding factor in how strictly people kept to the lockdown.

Meanwhile, three days in, and I still hadn't been able to trick myself into any kind of structure or grand productivity, just continuing to potter around. I looked at the altered book a couple of times, deciding the best way to tackle my "Garden Gate and Hidden Library" two page spread, then settled on sitting in the lounge knitting and watching Season three of "Boss Baby: Back in Business" on Netflix. On the bright side, I might actually get this baby blanket done before the baby is born. Before this, it was looking like I was going to be pushing to get it done before he/she graduated high school.

Evening came... and went. Dinner was had - no prizes for guessing what that was, and after 20 minutes browsing through all the movies on Netflix, I chose an English dubbed Chinese movie, and once more settled in for knitting and movies... minus the knitting. I got too engrossed in the movie, which by the end I still wasn't sure whether I liked or not.

After that I stood outside for a bit, looking up at the stars. The cold was the kind of cold you could actually smell - sharp, and slightly metallic at the back of the nose, with a heady floral top note - some unknown night-flowering plant. Missing were the usual lingering bottom notes of diesel and exhaust fumes. 

I wondered where all zombies were. I was going to be really disappointed if we didn't get zombies out of this. With that thought, I headed back inside promising myself that tomorrow, I would DEFINITELY get back on track with a schedule, get more productive, and maybe cut back on the amount of zombie flicks I watched.

Goodnight all, stay safe.